Basketball is the front porch of the university. It’s a recruitment tool. It’s a point of pride. It unified students amd alumni, the school and the surrounding community. If we allow our programs to throw good money after bad in a vicious cycle of poor management that is the OVC, we are giving up all of those things.

Like him or not, our previous president was right. You are who you compete against. And it should be challenging, both academically and athletically. It should push us. That’s what a move to the MVC would do. It would step up the competition athletically, but it would also put us in competition with schools who offer more academically.

In the end, you are either growing or dying.

We cannot let politically motivated financial struggles imposed by Frankfort define us and allow it to choke us out of existence.

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Im old enough to remember when being "politically correct" was understood to mean "not being a complete, racist, xenophobic a-hole". Good times...

Basketball is the front porch of the university. It’s a recruitment tool. It’s a point of pride. It unified students amd alumni, the school and the surrounding community. If we allow our programs to throw good money after bad in a vicious cycle of poor management that is the OVC, we are giving up all of those things.

Like him or not, our previous president was right. You are who you compete against. And it should be challenging, both academically and athletically. It should push us. That’s what a move to the MVC would do. It would step up the competition athletically, but it would also put us in competition with schools who offer more academically.

In the end, you are either growing or dying.

We cannot let politically motivated financial struggles imposed by Frankfort define us and allow it to choke us out of existence.

politics are not allowed on this board, really don't want a great meeting of the minds shutdown or locked on this thread. Political motivated finanacial struggles? Bevin Is not intent on hurting our University, that's crazy. Decades of mismanagement by lib dominated Frankfort has come to a head. We have a biz man as gov, not a pathetic politician who doesn't know the colors, red and black. We are also not a rich state with a great tax base. we are on the bottom.

Last edited by msuowns on Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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"Home, home again I like to be here when I can. When I come home cold and tired, it's good to warm my bones by the fire".

Basketball is the front porch of the university. It’s a recruitment tool. It’s a point of pride. It unified students amd alumni, the school and the surrounding community. If we allow our programs to throw good money after bad in a vicious cycle of poor management that is the OVC, we are giving up all of those things.

Like him or not, our previous president was right. You are who you compete against. And it should be challenging, both academically and athletically. It should push us. That’s what a move to the MVC would do. It would step up the competition athletically, but it would also put us in competition with schools who offer more academically.

In the end, you are either growing or dying.

We cannot let politically motivated financial struggles imposed by Frankfort define us and allow it to choke us out of existence.

politics are not allowed on this board, really don't want a great meeting of the minds shutdown or locked on this thread. Political motivated finanacial struggles? Bevin Is not intent on hurting our University, that's crazy. Decades of mismanagement by lib dominated Frankfort has come to a head. We have a biz man as gov, not a pathetic politician who doesn't know the colors, red and black. We are also not a rich state with a great tax base. we are on the bottom.

Everyone was complaining last week that Belmont's budget is $1 Million more than ours so now we're ok with basically EVERY team in the MVC having a bigger budget than us?

I'm all for bettering our program but tell me where the funds are going to come from to cover the increased expenses for basketball AND every other sport.

We're 13-8 against current MVC members in last 10 seasons so I would say we are competitive but I think we'll want more than to be competitive. Maybe my wording was bad when I asked how we could "compete". I meant compete well LOL.

And I'm tired of debating this. I'm going to support the Racers wherever they play. My opinion isn't going to change unless I see a viable plan of how we're going to pay for the move without the University or its academics suffering. I respect everyone else's opinion and

It’s a better league. We would get more money from the MVC. More NCAA shares over long term with us competitive in that league. Just one NCAA would cover any added expenses with travel. The fact is we already travel with multiple sports Out of conference. We could definitely add a few games with our current brethren like PeAy, SEMO, Belmont to cut down on travel. We are talking about a few extra dollars for fuel cost and a couple flights. We already pay for hotels. It’s not that big of a gap than what some of you make it out to be.

When we started this conversation, the MVC had been a two bid league on a regular basis. They then lost Wichita State, and Creighton, who were two of the reasons that they received multiple bids. Life in the MVC wasn't perfect or they would still be there.

Illinois State, while having a team with a record deserving of the tournament last year, was left out. The NCAA has changed. Unless you win your conference tournament, or you are one of the Big Six, you are going to have to beat at least one or more of their teams to get in. Most likely two or three of their teams, and you can add the AAC to that as well. Unless you do that , or are in the top 25 at seasons end, you are not going to make it. Belmont, and Lipscomb, who have both been in the 40's in the NET this year, will find that out in a few days. If St. Mary's, with an excellent program, had not won last night, most likely they would have been in the NIT. Gonzaga has became a nationwide program by playing a tougher schedule, and always getting the top players from overseas.

The point is, do we leave the one bid OVC, with minimal travel, to join the one bid MVC, with a great deal more travel? It might be a good time to see what else is available, or if there is another way to improve our programs, other than jumping to a league, who is sliding into mediocrity. If you will notice, Bradley and Drake, the tournament champion, and regular season champion, have not improved over previous years ranking significantly. It is just that the rest of the league has moved down to their level.

Two years ago, I was gung ho in wanting to move to the MVC. Now I am not so sure. If it will improve our recruiting and program, I am still for it. I just don't want to spend more money and travel longer distances to leave a one bid league to wind up in a one bid league. Gonzaga didn't get to where they are by changing leagues, but by improving their program. I trust that our President, AD, and coaches, along with the board of regents will choose the right path for us and hey...

The Gonzaga example is a good one. But needs to be further expanded. It wasn't just that Gonzaga "got better", it was that the conference around them has gotten better as well. Much of that was funded by Gonzaga (and St Mary's) NCAA success in the tournament. In the end, if the bottom half of the conference doesn't work to get better on a consistent basis, no matter how much work we do on our program won't matter.

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Im old enough to remember when being "politically correct" was understood to mean "not being a complete, racist, xenophobic a-hole". Good times...

I’m tired of comparing leagues by number of bids. MVC and OVC aren’t the same. Just the quality of opponents would increase our chances at being an at-large team. It really doesn’t matter if it’s “one-bid”. If it increases our at large opportunity then it in my opinion is a multi-bid league. You don’t need two good teams to be multi bid. Just one and an upset in the tournament.

The other thing that must be understood is the impact a conference has on seeding. The average OVC seed since 2000 is 13. That’s with the Racers getting a 6. In that same period, the MVC average was a single digit seed. For every jump in seed line, you get a jump in expected value, as the odds of you winning go up (it isn’t flat though, for example 12’s have a better chance to advance than 8/9, but 8/9 has a better chance to advance further).

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Im old enough to remember when being "politically correct" was understood to mean "not being a complete, racist, xenophobic a-hole". Good times...

I do agree that there are travel concerns with moving to any different conference. Murray is just so far away from civilization that moving to a different conference is going to be difficult. Busing you flying your basketball team is one thing. It's quite another when you consider football and baseball and some of the even lesser sports.

I also agree that the MVC isn't what it used to be. But who knows, if you add a Murray State and Belmont, maybe it grows. But I also agree that the Power Six (Seven? Is the PAC-12 still a power conference?) is getting the bulk of the at-large bids now anyway. It will be interesting to see how many mid-majors get at-large bids on Sunday. That will go a long ways towards deciding what the MVC's future is when it comes to being a potential multi-bid league.

But while I agree on those two points... I also think we can all agree... the OVC will never be a multi-bid league. The MVC may never be a multi-bid league again, but I can almost guarantee you that the OVC never will.

So I don't know what the answer is. Maybe splitting the OVC up is a solution, create two smaller conferences out of it. One with Murray, the other with Belmont then 9 times out of 10, both will win their conference tournaments and get automatic bids.

...

And I do agree, if Murray had been in the MVC this year, there's absolutely no guarantee that we would have had the same record we have now. Our NET ranking would be very different. Maybe better, maybe worse. But it's also possible that we could have lost 4 conference games and still had a better NET ranking than what we have in the OVC with 2 losses.

Both the OVC and MVC will always be one bid leagues unless something changes with the selection committee of the NCAA. The question is always, "who have they beat." I know that it is an unfair question when you have to play teams like Alabama, Indiana, Texas, and Ohio State on the road. It is okay to have a bad road record such as the 3-9, and 2-8 records exhibited by Indiana, and Texas, who are considered locks for the tournament. No wonder they play almost all of their non conference games at home. Both Belmont and Murray deserved bids win or lose in the tournament in comparison based on their road records. When you have that kind of record on the road, who you beat at home shouldn't really matter. What we really need to do is to make our program better so we can go on the road and beat some of these teams, or get to the point where we can attract and play good teams at home. It is going to require more money, and success in the tournament.

The Gonzaga example is a good one. But needs to be further expanded. It wasn't just that Gonzaga "got better", it was that the conference around them has gotten better as well. Much of that was funded by Gonzaga (and St Mary's) NCAA success in the tournament. In the end, if the bottom half of the conference doesn't work to get better on a consistent basis, no matter how much work we do on our program won't matter.

I think this should be an MBA thesis/research done on campus for this topic.

"The Actual ROI on Conference Realignment vs. Reinvestment in the OVC"

I mean most of the legwork has been done on this board since '12 [at least] and we all seen/read all of the pros and cons of this topic...

And if we do leave... (see below)

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Murray State is the OVC...When we leave for greener pastures , rename the damn conference to TVC #Reloaded #PGU

That would be the crux of the thesis and smarter people than me to come up with a plausible solution to convince the majority participants to really invest in the conference.

Maybe they should look into how did WCC convince each other to lift itself up over time. Gonzaga is good, better than most P5/6 schools; but a loss to St. Mary's, USF, or even BYU in their tourney isn't a death nail during Selection Sunday either.

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Murray State is the OVC...When we leave for greener pastures , rename the damn conference to TVC #Reloaded #PGU